


Incomplete Memories

by thephilosophersapprentice



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Dick has a way with words, Friendship, Gen, Memory Lane, Past Character Death, there's a reason for that but it's too long to put it in the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 05:00:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11350380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thephilosophersapprentice/pseuds/thephilosophersapprentice
Summary: Tie-in to "Performance." Dick almost died. M'gann can't make that better, but she can at least listen.





	Incomplete Memories

He had missed flying like this.

The crowd, the applause, the sensation of rushing wind, the smell of popcorn and crushed peanut hulls, all of it.

But right now, he couldn’t appreciate it. It felt as if there was a thick fog inside his head, slowing his reflexes.

His fingers slipped from the trapeze and he plummeted. For a moment, he felt weightless, except for the crushing terror of what waited for him on the ground.

_ Just like Mom and Dad. _

* * *

Dick sucked in a breath, struggling, phantom pain burning through his chest. Bedsheets. He was tangled in them, drenched in a cold sweat. Dick slowed his breathing, forcing himself to calm down before freeing himself.

“Robin? Are you all right?” Someone knocked at the door. M’gann. Dick snatched up the dark glasses from the bedside table just in time.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Just a dream.”

“I sensed emotional distress,” M’gann said insistently.

“I thought you weren’t an empath?”

M’gann looked embarrassed. “Oh. Uh--I may have forgotten to properly shut down the telepathic link after the mission. Sorry.”

Dick shrugged. “Nothing to be sorry about.” There was an uncomfortable silence.

“Uncle J’onn says that sometimes talking about it helps humans,” M’gann said. “Do you want to… talk about it?”

Dick shook his head.

“Is it all right if I talk about it, Robin?”

Dick shrugged.

“The circus… it was your home once, wasn’t it?” Dick kept his face carefully expressionless. M’gann sat down right next to him, so close they were actually touching. He edged away slightly, then decided to tough it out. Not to show that she’d made him uncomfortable.

(Not to show weakness.)

“What did you dream about?” M'gann asked.

“Slipping off the trapeze.”

M’gann raised her eyebrows. It made her look a little odd, but she was still learning the nuances of human facial expressions.

(They were  _ all _ still learning--still settling into each other’s ways.)

Dick sighed. “I mean, I’ve fallen lots of times. And there was always a net. I don’t mind falling. It’s… escapism, I guess. But that time… I just froze up. I thought I was going to die, just like…” He stopped. Bruce would be furious if he ever found out Dick had let so much slip. He’d almost given up his entire cover. That was what the Robin identity was  _ for _ , Bruce would say. To keep us safe.

“Just like?” M’gann prompted.

Dick froze for a moment, torn.

“My parents,” he said at last.

M’gann’s mouth made a silent “o.” “I’m sorry I asked,” she said at last.

Dick’s mouth quirked into a rueful grin. “Don’t be. You wanted to fix me, I guess.” He shrugged, helplessly. “Missing the trapeze--it just… It grabbed me by the throat and threw me right back there.” M’gann looked alarmed for a moment, and Dick realized guiltily that it was probably his graphic metaphor that was at fault.

It was still the best description of what had happened, though.

“On Mars, performance is different,” M’gann said. “We do not need to hide what we feel, as humans do.”

_ Oh, M’gann, you’re far more human than you think. _

Dick took off the sunglasses. “I don’t know what you think of me. I just…” The sentence hung uncomfortably on still air.

“You miss them,” M’gann said. “Is there shame in grief on Earth?”

Dick looked away. “It’s complicated,” he said. M’gann snuggled up next to him--strangely cool, but reassuring all the same.

“Tell me about them,” she said.

Dick sighed. “I don’t know where to start.” He shrugged, uneasily. “You and everyone else are so lucky in the secret identity department. People... remember... tragedy. No matter where I go, how long I live, there’s going to be somebody who will remember me as the orphaned circus kid. You don’t know how lucky you are, just to be anonymous.”

“You’re afraid you’ll always remember the tragedy, not the good things?” M’Gann asked.

“We’re all defined by tragedy in some way,” Robin said. “I just… I don’t want it to  _ consume _ me.”

“Your parents?” M’Gann prompted.

It took a moment to enter that inner room, to shut the door. “I remember Mom’s songs the best,” he said, holding onto that. “When I can’t remember what she looked like, I remember her voice. It stayed with me. I remember… Dad’s hands, holding me up when I couldn’t catch myself. Mom’s pet name. That’s why I chose the name Robin. Mom… used to call me that. Winter in Florida. I remember… the smell of an ocean breeze through an open window. Mozart on the radio-- _ The Marriage of Figaro _ , I think. Mom loved opera. I think  _ Carmina Burana _ was her favorite. Dad used to put me on his shoulders. I’ve never been scared of heights, or of feeling weightless. I first got on a trapeze when I was four. It was like having wings. It seemed… so cruel… that something we loved so much would destroy us.”

Robin pulled his knees up, resting his forehead against them. “When you lose someone, when you survive, part of you dies with them--you bury a piece of yourself with them. It’s learning how to live without that part of yourself, how to move on when in a sense, you’ll always be there, in that one moment. Living it still.” He shifted slightly, thinking about how to phrase the rest of the story. “Batman took me in. He gave me back my wings. But it’s not the same--it’s not to make people smile. It’s to keep them safe. To make sure that no one else ever has to go through what I did. And I’ll never get that part of myself back, but I will still smile and make other people to smile, and I  _ will _ save everyone I can, and I’m not going to get lost in a pity party because this is who I am, this is what I’ve made of my tragedy.” He looked up at the Martian girl. “M’Gann, promise me that you won’t try to find out my real name. I don’t mind if you know who  _ I _ am, but Batman’s identity is his secret, and you knowing could put both you and him at risk.”

“I promise,” M’Gann said sincerely, wrapping her hands around his.

**Author's Note:**

> I mentioned that Dick has a reason for speaking the way he does. Part of it is because part of the dialogue is stream-of-consciousness, but the other part of that reason is that Dick's a performer; he's going to use words to entertain. Also, he's not necessarily a native English speaker--it's heavily implied that Dick traveled internationally with Haly's before, so I deliberately played up the way he talks to sound a little bit foreign, because he's talking about his time with the circus.  
> Did I mention that Dick would definitely be the best with languages and have a great ear for accents?


End file.
